


Mutual Comfort

by Amatara, laughingpineapple



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Little Spoon Albert, M/M, Melancholy, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Spooning, art + fic collab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10122941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amatara/pseuds/Amatara, https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Someone isn't sleeping well. Someone else comforts him and, in turn, is brought back to a memory of simpler days.Or: someone imagines a situation, someone else draws it and, in turn, prompts a ficlet to go along with it.All involved parties are a little better off now, with some more much-needed Albert and/or Dale in their lives.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [laughingpineapple ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple), ficlet by [Amatara ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amatara/pseuds/Amatara).

*

Albert rarely dreamed, let alone talked in his sleep. At least that’s what Dale remembered from the times they’d shared a bed, which, since Albert had moved to Seattle, was an uncommon enough occurrence. But the walls of the Great Northern didn’t keep the sound in nearly as well as they were able to keep the cold out, so Dale could hear every noise from the adjoining room. Right now, those noises were muffled and breathless, an occasional mumbled phrase punctuating heavy sighs, and although he couldn’t make out the words, the distress in them was obvious. 

Dale lingered at the door in his slippers and pajamas, contemplating the room key he held in his palm. They’d both asked for spare keys and exchanged them this morning - at Albert’s insistence, under repeated assurances that no one was getting sentimental here. For emergencies, he’d said. Although this didn’t, strictly, qualify as one, a proper night’s sleep was indispensable enough that a case could be made for it anyway. Unless he used earplugs, Dale wasn’t about to get much sleep tonight. He doubted Albert’s was turning out very restful either. 

Which was why, some minutes later, he was standing over Albert’s bed, watching the unsteady rise and fall of his shoulders. He was curled onto his side, blankets a mess, the scowl he’d worn for most of the day still clinging to his face. For a second, his breathing hitched and Dale froze in place, but all that happened was for Albert to mutter a scratchy ‘ _no, don’t_...’ and bury his face into the pillow. Dale swallowed, hard, then made up his mind.

Climbing into bed with Albert was a study in melancholy - sliding in between the covers, struggling not to drown in old memories of going through all-too-similar motions, back when they’d been young and impatient and didn’t care about the consequences… except that wasn’t true, because Albert had always cared, even while pretending not to. The status quo between them might be brittle these days, but their feelings hadn’t changed, and while that made this harder, Dale couldn’t find it in himself to believe it was _wrong_. 

Albert, once asleep, would doze through a tornado, so he didn’t even twitch when Dale eased in beside him, finding the warm space at his back where the mattress dipped down. He slid his arms around Albert’s waist, feeling frail and bruised and dazed with longing. Not for any physical thing, but for… a time, maybe. A kinder, simpler time than the one they lived in. But nothing had never been simple for either of them. The nightmares weren’t new, just different. Dale shivered and clung to the sleeping man beside him, hoping that together, they could keep them at bay.

*


End file.
